Ruyi Vegetarian Redhill Review

Always look out for eateries with long queues and you are sure to find good food very well. This statement of wisdom certainly fits Ruyi Vegetarian. This is because you will always find long queues of customers waiting patiently for their plate of economical Mee Hoon or noodles at the hawker stall on any day of the week.

Ruyi Vegetarian only sells economical Mee Hoon and noodles. This local staple dish is hardly interesting to write about. The dish consists of fried vermicelli (or what we call Mee Hoon in local dialect) sometimes doused with braised gravy and a variety of mock meat and vegetables. When I was young, all I know about vegetarian food is economical Mee Hoon as the food stall in the nearby food centre only sells this dish. This is the most basic vegetarian hawker food you can get in Singapore.

As you approach the stall in the coffee shop, it is clear that Ruyi Vegetarian has perfected the routine of serving hungry customers, with one helper filling the plate with Mee Hoon or noodles and the other placing the ingredients on the plate and collecting the money. You can also request for the braised gravy which effectively turned the Mee Hoon into some sort of Hor Fun.

So what is so interesting about the Mee Hoon from Ruyi? The first thing to hit you is the fragrant aroma from the Mee Hoon. Interestingly the dish does not have any fried crispy beancurd skin (斋鹅 in Chinese) which is quintessential of the dish. Though many people may consider this as weird, one will promptly forget about the beancurd skin when he puts the sliced crispy mock chicken and gluten mock meat. Special mention must go to the brown gluten mock meat which has a sticky texture. The sweet chilli sauce is excellent too. Amazingly, despite so much mock ingredients, you will not grow tired of its taste. The only minus point is that the dish is oily which you will usually expect from economical Mee Hoon.

Conclusion:

We think that the economical Mee Hoon is one of the best in Singapore. You have to come early during the fortnightly Lunar first or fifteenth else you will spend plenty of time waiting in the queue. A hungry man is an angry man. A hungry man who has to wait in a queue is even angrier. So do not end up the people in the queue below :)

You can find out about the operating hours and exact location of Ruyi here.